I'm so glad I didn't listen to the negative reviewers on this book, because I loved it. Although, just from reading the "preview" section, I realized that I was really going to like it.
Lady Larissa Hawksworth, known affectionately as Lara, was verbally, emotionally and sexually abused by her husband during the first years of their life. He was in love with another woman but married Lara because she was younger and could, theoretically, provide him with children. Unfortunately for Lara she failed to do so and the verbal and emotional abuse grew worse, although at least he stopped "forcing himself" (i.e. marital rape) on her. Instead he just degraded and insulted her, played little games to humiliate her and veritably made it impossible for her to please him although she did her best to be a dutiful wife.
If it wasn't for his awful cousin Arthur who took Hawksworth's title after Hunter perished at sea, Lara's life would have been much better after her husband passed. Although she made the best of things anyway, even though she was basically kicked out of her house and sent to live in the barely habitable gameskeeper's cottage. After years of abuse and no one helping her she's begun to devote her life to helping others, especially orphaned children who, like her, have no control over the awful circumstances that they find themselves in.
And then her husband comes home. Or at least, a man saying he's her husband, and Lara knows that her nightmare is about to begin all over again. Except that now Hunter is insisting that he's different (but then again, most abusers say that) and he goes about doing his best to win her over. But can she trust what he says or is this just another game that he's designed to humiliate and hurt her?
Lara is one of the bravest heroines out there... it's hard enough for someone who's been abused the way she has to go about trusting someone new, but to allow herself to be romanced and coaxed to trust the same person who hurt her takes a lot of courage - not to mention time and constancy on his part and you have to admire Hunter for his tenacity.
About a third of the way into the book the reader finds that Hunter is not who he says he is, and even as Lara is struggling to learn to trust her "husband," the reader already knows that he's lying to her, which puts an entirely new threat over the happiness that she's finally learning to have. Because for a woman who's already been betrayed by her husband in every way, finally allowing herself to trust him and fall in love with him only to find out that THIS man has been lying to her about EVERYTHING is going to be devastating and you find yourself bracing for this final showdown throughout the entire book. It adds a level of anxiety and interest that I usually only experience with murder mysteries or adventure books.
I love the relationship between Lara and Hunter, the two steps forward and one step back. Intellectually she knows better than to trust him, but her heart and instincts are telling her that it's okay. He proves to her, one slow step at a time, that he's not going to humiliate, degrade, insult or rape her. There are lots of roadblocks, most of them initiated by her, all in an attempt to protect herself. At one point she even throws his mistress at him, the woman Hunter always loved. This is to protect herself from finally having to spend a night with him and also because she's now a little worried about her heart - after all, if she gives in to trusting and loving him only to have him leave her for the mistress again... Ouch. No wonder she felt the need to do one final test before giving herself fully to him.
Watching her blossom from the person her husband boxed her into, under the gentle tutelage of this new version of her husband, was absolutely delightful. By the end of the book Lara has learned how to trust, she's learned that although she might be an independent person it's okay to depend on someone else some of the time, she's learned that the world isn't black and white, and she's learned that sometimes the right thing to do isn't always the honest thing. It was very pleasurable watching Hunter coax her out of the cage she lived in, watching him teach her these things. The slow seduction is especially steamy and done very realistically. I wouldn't have believed it if Lara had been willing to hop right into bed with him or to trust him immediately; Hunter seduces her heart and mind along with her body and the result is a wonderfully romantic book.
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Top reviews from other countries
lisa
Mostly great but with character flaw
Reviewed in Australia on February 9, 2019